Weight Gain During Menopause and How to Deal

We women have to face it. Menopause is a fact of life. That makes all the inherent signs, symptoms, and unpleasantries inevitable as well. One of the hardest things to deal with is weight gain during menopause. Think about it. During menopause, water retention makes you feel bloated anyway. You cannot sleep, so you look – and feel – exhausted every second of the day. You suffer through hot flashes, you get soaked with night sweats.

Your periods are erratic, your cramps are painful. Your emotions are all over the place. You feel terrible and, more often than not, that makes you feel like you look terrible as well. Whether it is true or not, that is just the way you feel. Then, of course, you start to put on weight. And menopausal weight is not like regular weight. It not only damages your self esteem, it can actually change the entire shape of your body.

 That's right, the shape of your body will go through a transition too. Obviously it is not enough that your hormones are going through a topsy turvy transition. Nor is it enough that you are on an emotional roller coaster that takes you up and down at unexpected intervals. You not only have to deal with menopausal weight gain, you not only have to deal with the fact that your entire life and your womanhood is changing. Your entire body is changing and for a lot of women that is simply too much to deal with at one time.

Here are the facts: when we are not menopausal, our body stores extra fat cells in certain places. Namely, we gain weight around our hips, our thighs, and our rear ends. We are used to this. We have become accustomed to it. We know where our weight is going to settle if we put on a few extra pounds. But then our hormones decide to turn everything all kinds of upside down. Our estrogen levels start to wreak havoc. Now, we start putting on weight around our abdomens. A lot of us start to accumulate belly fat where we never before had it. Your normal shape will be a thing of the past. Suddenly, instead, you start to realize what the term "apple shaped" means, because that is exactly what you are shaped like. Before menopause, especially if you have had children, you take on more of a so called "pear shape." That just means that most of your weight gathers around your mid lower body. When menopause makes you put on weight around your abdomen, however, it makes you look like you have an apple tummy.

There is good news and bad news when it comes to weight gained during menopause – aside of the aforementioned facts, of course. As if that news is not bad enough! Let's get the bad news out of the way first: on the average, women gain anywhere from 10 pounds to 15 or more during their menopause years. The good news is that they gain it gradually. Normally, you will not gain much more than a pound or so every year.